UVEX espresso for those unfamiliar with nighttime lighting health effects
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Hello,
For folks who are completely unaware of the negative effects and risks brought by alerting white light at the wrong time of day, would the espresso shade be enough to significantly reduce melatonin suppression at night? I like that it allows the full color spectrum but coverts everything (including philips activiva blue) to below halogen light alertness.
I'm hoping that I can persuade the eyewear's use by adults to help their sleep--especially now as the sun sets much earlier.
My main concern is how to present the fact that bright light disrupts or delays sleep and why tools like uvex orange and espresso are a preventative health measure. I'll be speaking to family that are just not aware of the effects or importance. How do I describe the effect in a way that is easy to understand--should I mention the iPad study that delayed sleep for 30 minutes after reading for 90 minutes?
Do you think the information on the fluxometer would help this or might it be a bit too technical. Would the phase shift details help and what would be the best way to explain this?
I plan to have this setup soon and would like some assisstance as I'm sure you've done this before.
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Well these espresso ones are rather like wearing wraparound sunglasses (I think they were used in a shiftwork study) - and I think the main issue that people will like the way sunglasses look more. We have made a point to only buy "cheap" glasses for testing, but they are not things you'd want to wear to a party. I guess we'll have to spend some money on the more stylish stuff sometime soon.
The hard thing to explain is that our eyes are designed to "ignore" intensity - you go from outdoors to indoors and the lights change by 100:1 or 1000:1 but you don't notice. So this is the main thing to explain - that you don't notice it but the light is very bright.
The f.luxometer website was designed to explain these things well to people who enjoy normal lighting measurement - I guess the target audience is more like architects, enthusiasts, lighting people, scientists. We still need to finish our consumer version.
Also the iPad study was compared with 3 lux of light - so the issue mainly is that regular home lighting is a lot brighter than this. And we aren't sure if regular home lighting has more impact than screens (because you don't use screens all the time), but I'd say for most people it probably does. The iPad study is an interesting example because it shows how far these "normal" nighttime exposures are compared to what we'd see in more natural conditions.
Do read up on the Ken Wright camping study (2013) - it is always fun at parties.
The main thing is that day and night quite a lot different, and so these glasses give you a good way to test if the light is affecting you. If you try $10 glasses for a week and it has a big effect, well that's an interesting thing to know. Experiencing these things is important.
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@herf Yes the espresso lenses are extremely similar to the "brownie" eye wear on the fluxometer and possibly most brown tinted sunglasses. I'm also concerned about the styling but I guess the skyper will do. Hopefully I can persuade everyone to wear them to get much better sleep and use that as a response if they start getting strange looks.
The hard thing to explain is that our eyes are designed to "ignore" intensity - you go from outdoors to indoors and the lights change by 100:1 or 1000:1 but you don't notice. So this is the main thing to explain - that you don't notice it but the light is very bright.
Yes this especially! It's definitely closer to 1000:1 when the sun is out! I want to explain that seeing bright daylight in the morning and throughout the day is just as important than wearing brown lenses as the night time lighting effect will be a bit less powerful.
Also I will discuss what you mentioned about lights not being the same brightness as daylight but having near half the alerting (melatonin productiom delay) effect, even though the body will have already started producing it near sunset. This eyewear will help reduce that change or interruption of the hormone and sleep could arrive sooner.
I'll pass on the info to dim screens as even though they seem dim, they're quite bright and getting significantly brighter.
I think that covers all the important parts, and I'll be sure to read the Ken Wright camping study, I know my wake time is different whenever I go.
Thank you for the help and especially the speedy reply. After I posted the message I started thinking how busy you might be so this is great. I feel a lot more prepared to explain the effects of light on human sleep and this is a coincidence boost as well. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, take it easy.
